Anthropologists have often remarked that in gender-segregated societies, where men’s and women’s secret associations play important roles in maintaining mutual respect between the sexes, secrecy is a ...
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Anthropologists have often remarked that in gender-segregated societies, where men’s and women’s secret associations play important roles in maintaining mutual respect between the sexes, secrecy is a necessary illusion. If there are secrets among women, it is that they possess the imperturbability and moral strength that men consider solely and essentially theirs, while if there are secrets among men, it is that they possess the procreative and nurturing powers that women consider uniquely their own. This is the insight that underlies Gregory Bateson’s thesis that in societies where gender segregation is strictly enforced, an exaggerated and potentially dysfunctional gap will tend to open up between the sexes (complementary schismogenesis) that must be periodically and ritually closed in order to avoid complete alienation between men and women (symmetrical schismogenesis). In the role reversals of Kuranko initiation the strict separation of men and women, and the theatrical antagonism between them, masks an imitation and merging of opposite sexual qualities and works to prevent an absolute polarization of anima and animus.Less

Crossing the Water

Michael Jackson

Published in print: 2017-10-10

Anthropologists have often remarked that in gender-segregated societies, where men’s and women’s secret associations play important roles in maintaining mutual respect between the sexes, secrecy is a necessary illusion. If there are secrets among women, it is that they possess the imperturbability and moral strength that men consider solely and essentially theirs, while if there are secrets among men, it is that they possess the procreative and nurturing powers that women consider uniquely their own. This is the insight that underlies Gregory Bateson’s thesis that in societies where gender segregation is strictly enforced, an exaggerated and potentially dysfunctional gap will tend to open up between the sexes (complementary schismogenesis) that must be periodically and ritually closed in order to avoid complete alienation between men and women (symmetrical schismogenesis). In the role reversals of Kuranko initiation the strict separation of men and women, and the theatrical antagonism between them, masks an imitation and merging of opposite sexual qualities and works to prevent an absolute polarization of anima and animus.